Focus on accountability, performances as TOPS prunes list

New Delhi: The double Olympics bronze medal-winning men’s hockey team, the men’s and women’s athletics relay teams, and a number of individual athletes have been left out from the Target Olympic Podium Scheme’s (TOPS) list for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics cycle, according to officials aware of the matter. Asian Games silver medallist hurdler Jyothi Yarraji (centre) is among the big names who have been dropped from core list. (PTI)

In the Paris Olympics cycle, a total of 120 athletes from Olympics sports were part of the core group. That number is now down to 42. On the other hand, 52 para athletes have also made the core group as against 57 in the Paris Games cycle.

HT has seen the new list.

Among the major individual athletes who have been left out of the core group are table tennis ace Sharath Kamal, Asian Games silver medallist in 100m hurdles Jyothi Yarraji, long jumper Jeswin Aldrin, and Asian Games gold medallist shot putter Tajinderpal Singh Toor.

Athletics, which had 30 sportspersons in the core group in last cycle, now has only three athletes -- javelin ace Neeraj Chopra, 3,000m steeplechaser Avinash Sable, and long jumper Murali Sreeshankar -- in the list. The number of boxers has come down to two from six with only Nikhat Zareen and Lovlina Borgohain making the cut. In tennis, top singles player Sumit Nagal and veteran Rohan Bopanna have not found places while the table tennis group features only Manika Batra and Sreeja Akula.

“Only the athletes with genuine potential to win an Olympic medal have been included in the core group. In the previous cycle, every athlete who qualified for the Olympics made it to the core group irrespective of their potential to win a medal. We felt that must change,” a senior Sports Authority of India (SAI) official said, asking not to be named.

The decision to prune the list was deliberated at length in the most recent meeting of the Mission Olympic Cell (MOC) held earlier this month. “It was felt that we need more accountability. Also, we need to fix criterion for athletes to be included in the core group. It is an honest reflection of potential vis-a-vis performances,” the CEO of TOPS NS Johal said.

TOPS is also in the process of creating sports-specific benchmarks to judge athletes. “TOPS is always a dynamic list, which means there will be regular performance reviews to ascertain an athlete’s physical and psychological fitness,” Johal said.

With that in mind, plans are afoot to put every athlete to at least two tests a year -- one physical and one psychological -- to judge their overall fitness.

Athletes who are part of the TOPS core group get a monthly stipend of ₹50,000 while those in the development group get ₹25,000 per month.

The athletes who have made the core group, will be, in due course, told what’s expected of them, Johal said.

“We need some expectation-setting. The athletes who are part of the system must know that we expect. They will be judged on measurable metrics,” Johal said. This means that to be included in the core group, the athletes had to be either Paris medallists, or gone deep in the draw or be in the top 16 of the world rankings. The benchmarks, however, are still a work in progress and will be sent to respective NSFs soon.

“We will have different criterion for different sports. In athletics, for instance, we wanted only the medallists or finalist. That’s how Neeraj and Sable made the list. Murali Sreeshankar, who missed out on Paris due to an injury, was included because we believe him to be a top-eight athlete at the Olympic level,” Johal added.

In boxing, Nisant Dev, Amit Panghal, Preeti Pawar, and Jasmine Lamboria have been left out from the core group. Nishant, among the most promising amateur pugilists in the country, recently turned pro, which is what went against him. “He will be in contention as and when he returns to the amateur fold because we believe him to be a great prospect,” Johal said.

The men’s hockey team was part of TOPS since 2018. “TOPS is a programme for individual athletes, so most team disciplines have been excluded. A funding stream for them will be identified in due course,” another SAI official said.

National athletics coach Radhakrishnan Nair hailed the move, calling it “much-needed pruning.” “It is a very accurate reflection of our athletes’ potential. A lot of athletes who are not part of core group have been moved to the development group, which means they are not being abandoned. Core group should only feature genuine Olympic medal prospects,” Nair said.

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